Another Angle 18 - February - 2007

ANOTHER ANGLE
News others won't tell you



The Global Shell & Pea Game
Six weeks ago, after a year of speculation, Iran changed its oil bourse from petrodollars to petroeuros. US rhetoric against the leadership of Iran was therefore ratcheted up in latter 2006. First, Ahmadinejad’s call to erase the Zionist political entity from the pages of time was translated in to “wipe Israel off the map”, alarming the world to a specter of a new holocaust. Second, Iran’s nuclear weaponry intentions were disclosed — a new imminent threat — but the American taxpayers weren’t buying that one so easily this time. Thus, the new story of Iranian supplies to insurgents in Iraq is told at bedtime (less than one percent of attacks on US troops in Iraq are by Shiites).



NATIONAL:



02.15 Brzezinski's Damning Indictment
Brzezinski told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam." Brzezinski predicts "some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a 'defensive' U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan."



The Obama revolution
Barack Obama had no placards. His campaign desk was sparse, undecorated and banner-free. He walked on to the stage with no music at all. He left the same way, with only the sound of thunderous applause filling his ears. The message was clear: Barack Obama does not need campaign gimmicks and he is not doing things the old-fashioned way. And it worked.
The Obama revolution is sweeping through the Democratic party.



Obama Set For Big Jewish Push
The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is poised to dramatically increase its Jewish outreach. That includes the recruitment of top Jewish donors and advisers, and an expected major speech on Israel and the Middle East that a Democratic insider said “will set the baseline and establish Sen. Obama as a reliable, strong supporter of Israel.”



INTERNATIONAL:



Zambia loses 'vulture fund' case
Vulture funds - as defined by the International Monetary Fund and UK Chancellor Gordon Brown among others - are companies which buy up the debt of poor nations cheaply when it is about to be written off, then sue for the full value of the debt plus interest. "Zambia has been planning to spend the money released from debt cancellation on much-needed nurses, teachers and infrastructure. "This is what debt cancellation is intended for, not to line the pockets of businessmen based in rich countries."



Imported chicken cripples economy in western Africa
“The competition from cheap, imported chicken from Europe made 92 percent of small chicken farmers in Cameroon lose their main income source between 1996 and 2003,” Bernard Njonga of the Cameroon NGO, the Association Citoyenne de Défense des Intérêts Collecitifs (ACDIC), told IPS. ACDIC leads a campaign against the chicken imports and now has more than 10,000 members—farmers and also consumers. “That meant 645 farms going under. Typically four to six families depend on each farm. These people lost their jobs and were dumped into poverty,” Mr. Njonga said.



Army and police desert beleaguered Mugabe
Mugabe, ruler of Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980, claimed Britain has been trying to oust him. But the UK says Zimbabwe's long-running political and economic crisis is a result of rights abuses, vote-rigging and skewed policies, which have nothing to do with London.



Olmert threatens to boycott Palestinian Authority




IRAQ:



Rice, in Surprise Baghdad Visit, Presses Leaders for Progress
She said she had told Iraq’s leaders to quickly finish work on an oil law that would distribute revenues evenly among Iraq’s population.



New Oil Law Means Victory in Iraq for Bush
This law has been in the works since the very beginning of the invasion - indeed, since months before the invasion, when the Bush administration brought in Phillip Carroll, former CEO of both Shell and Fluor, the politically-wired oil servicing firm, to devise "contingency plans" for divvying up Iraq's oil after the attack. Once the deed was done, Carroll was made head of the American "advisory committee" overseeing the oil industry of the conquered land.



Iraq: Kurdish Oil Law Poses Problem For Baghdad - RADIO FREE ...
"The Kurds have submitted a draft petroleum act to be adopted that gives them the right to control oil, regardless of the government in Baghdad. The Oil Ministry has submitted another completely different draft that gives the authority to the ministry, not regions. It's the main issue of the conflict: oil and Kurds," he said. The establishment of a petroleum law in the Kurdish region not only underscores the decentralization of oil resources, but it constitutes another step in the Kurds' move away from the Baghdad government.



OP-ED:



It's still about oil in Iraq - Los Angeles Times
Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.



It's Time for Star Athletes to Choose HBCUs
We all know how Major League Baseball swiped stars from the Negro Leagues. Well, if you think about it, that's basically what happens when prep stars shun historically black schools like North Carolina Central University for schools like UNC, Duke and Ohio State.



HEALTH&FITNESS:



Magnetic Pulse Treatment Targets Depression
Transcranial magnetic stimulation, under investigation as a potential treatment for depression, sends a magnetic pulse to stimulate the brain. Keith Seinfeld of member station KPLU in Seattle reports on the experiences of a woman named Georgia, who is among hundreds who have agreed to try the device.



FOOD&DRINK:



Sweet and Savory: Odd Food Combinations
We don't raise an eyebrow at carrot cake or peanut butter cookies. No one is alarmed by pumpkin pie. We don't raise an eyebrow at carrot cake or peanut butter cookies. No one is alarmed by pumpkin pie. But is the world ready for potato-chip cookies? Finding savory or other unusual ingredients in sweet baked goods was not uncommon 100 years ago, when frugal housewives used every leftover bit of food. Along the way, they learned some things.



REVIEWS/INTERVIEWS:



NPR : The Harlem Renaissance, On and Off the Court
In "On the Shoulders of Giants" Abdul-Jabbar (with co-author Raymond Obstfeld) recounts how a few square miles in northern Manhattan became the cultural capital of Black America in the 1920s and '30s (while extortionate rents were creating slum conditions). Abdul-Jabbar's definition of the Harlem Renaissance is expansive enough to include not just its famous intellectuals -Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, et al- but Marcus Garvey, the charismatic advocate of a return to Africa who had a mass following. "It was the renaissance atmosphere in Harlem that gave him the inspiration and platform to launch his Universal Negro Improvement Association," Abdul-Jabbar explains. The classy intellectuals promoting the image of a "new Negro" despised Garvey.



Bassett and Vance Tell Their 'Love Story'
Celebrity couple Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance have a new book out about relationships. It's titled Friends: A Love Story. The book tells the story of their emotional lives both before and after they met.



HUMOR?:



Flip Wilson on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1965
If you have only seen Flip as "Geraldine" or as the "Pastor of The Church of What's Happening Now", check out this comic genius doing the "Tonight Show"